any biologists here?

cm1179

cm1179

cm1179

Soldato
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i just watched a film called 'the man from earth'. not a bad film, more like a tvm in all reality though i did find it interesting.

the film is about a man who is 14,000 yrs old and this is the basis of the film, him telling his friends about this.

anyway, when he first reveals this info, his friends are obviously a little shocked. his friends happen to be scientists of a professor level. the question is put to a biologist 'what would a man of 14,000 yrs look like by todays standard' (or something like that) and without going into the full description of his answer, he says that the human body is actually of a design that should live for 190 years, it is only through us poisining ourselves (he is drinking whiskey at the time and nods to this) which slows down cell recreation that causes us to die much younger.

is this accurate, is the body of a suitable design to live for 190 years if it was not poisoned or struck by disease?
 
Do people who ingest none of the poisons you've mentioned live to 190?

To be honest, our life expectancies now are only thanks to the superior quality of life and medical treatment provided by modern technology. Without them, living happily on to 80 and above frequently, would be just a dream, let alone 190!
 
Rubbish really, 7 billion people on earth and the oldest is what 122? look a the budhist monks and other simple living with no vices, 5 of the ten oldest people ever were from the US where health is supposed to be terrible
 
Basically if you have good genes, avoid polluted areas and live a good healthy lifestyle it's possible to live up to great age.

Pancreas regeneration takes 24 hours, the Stomach a week, blood is replaced regularly, and the brain creates new connection. It is believed that every cell in your body is replaced in roughly 7 years, and on average human the body is 15 years old. With time and pollution, even mavity itself falters the cycle, new cells are not as stable and organs become more open to diseases. Waste accumulates until eventually proves fatal. If you grow a body in a tube, under perfect condition it is believed to function for 190 years.

Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_long_can_a_human_body_live#ixzz1icj1SCry
 
The body is "designed" to live to the age at which it can no longer reproduce effectively which is much less than 190 years, luck and modern medicine have pushed those boundarys.

I think...
 
DAnDan said:
Do people who ingest none of the poisons you've mentioned live to 190?

To be honest, our life expectancies now are only thanks to the superior quality of life and medical treatment provided by modern technology. Without them, living happily on to 80 and above frequently, would be just a dream, let alone 190!
Click to expand...

no but he was talking about the design of it. i don't know why it would be in the script if it was utter pish, it's something i'd never heard of before and couldn't get my head around why it would be stated if there wasn't anything to back it up? but it was quite a low budget (and frankly ridiculous) film . he spoke of the panchreas (sp?) and its ability to recreate cells and i got the impression he meant it had the design to do this for a long time if not poisoned/hit by disease etc but i found it quite an interesting statement, just wondering if anyone could shed any light on it....
 
ng93 said:
Apparently no cell in a body is older than 7 years old, so why do we die of old age?
Click to expand...

As far as I know (I'm a chemist though, not a biologist), it's basically down to very small amounts of "data loss" (I guess you could call it that) when cells replicate, which over time adds up, and causes ageing, and the associated problems.
 
Generally speaking, I imagine the body is probably 'designed' or 'built' to last for 28 years. Historically individuals would reproduce much earlier than this. Once you have survived to pass on your genes, there is biologically speaking little point to your existence, there never has been. Your entire body has undergone evolutionary pressures to maximise its chance of reproduction - the artefact of this is that nothing selects for genes post reproduction so you get old and die.

For example, if we all had genes that gave us cancer so we died at 29, it wouldn't make a jot of difference as long as we all had children before this age. This is why we get old.

So yeah, rubbish contained in the film :p
 
The brain only lasts for about 70 years max anyway so the likelihood of your body being "designed" for 190 years is unlikely. Your brain starts to fall apart with age, hence altzheimers and other brain degrading diseases.
 
Amp34 said:
The brain only lasts for about 70 years max anyway so the likelihood of your body being "designed" for 190 years is unlikely. Your brain starts to fall apart with age, hence altzheimers and other brain degrading diseases.
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there's plenty of people in their 90's whose brain seems to function very well considering?
 
Well yes, not everyone will be "struck down" with those issues, but there is a reason it is called senile dementia.
 
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